High performance camp to produce cricketers: Mudassar
Musaddar recalled that in 2003 and 2009 long duration high performance camps were organised.
LAHORE (APP): Director National Cricket Academy Mudassar Nazar said on Thursday that the ongoing high performance cricket camp will help in identifying new talented players to fill the void in the national team after the retirement of former Pakistan captains, Misbah-ul-Haq and Younis Khan.
“Whenever such an activity (camp) has been organised it served the Pakistan cricket in a big way as few talented players were discovered to serve the national team,” he told the media here.
Musaddar recalled that in 2003 and 2009 long duration high performance camps were organised and on both occasions it helped in getting quality cricketers to be a part of the national team. “It is not easy to find the replacements of Misbah and Younis as they served the game with pride creating records for the homeland,” he said.
He said sometimes it is easy to get the replacements of iconic cricketers and sometimes it takes years to find the player of their class.
“It is my personal experience based on my involvement in the previous camps (2003 and 2009) that we have been able to find very good players who served the national cricket for quite a period,” he said.
He said it is not fair thought to conclude that after success in the Champions trophy the team is fully balanced in all aspects.
“Based on one title win in a major tournament we can not sit back and relax ,still there is a lot of work to be done on the national side with passage of time and its participation in future events, team building is continuous process and so is the replacement of players in case of their failure,” said the NCA director.
Mudassar said the high performance will also help in improving the standards of the domestic cricket as when the participants of the camp will feature in the national tournaments they will be far ahead in all physical fitness and technique and the other players will be learning from them to improve the level of their game and fitness.
To a question he said efforts are being made to strengthen the pace battery of the national team by giving special attention to the pace bowlers. “We have few youngsters in our national junior squads (U16 and U17) who are really quick but we have to wait for while to see them at their peak,” he added.
“During the tour of our A team we discover one or two high quality cricketers and that is success of that team,” he said adding “There is dire need to pay attention on our junior teams to groom the talent as it takes a lot of time and effort to find such cricketers who can serve the game for quite a long time.”
